2016: Best, Worst and In-Between

2016 was a terrible year and I don’t think anyone will argue against that, do I need to remind you of all the terrible things that happened in the last 12 months? Well I don’t want to, read it somewhere else I’m not your mother. 2016 was NOT a terrible year for movies however and I can say that having seen a lot of them, like an inhuman amount of them, so many that when I tell people they give me weird looks. This is partially why I could only boil it down to 39 that I thought were worth talking about (and even then there were so many that it pained me to leave out); some are great, some are terrible and a lot fall somewhere in-between.

Best #1 – MOONLIGHT

Adults sitting around a table staring at a kid trying find the right thing to say to get him to open up, to give him confidence, to make him comfortable, to do what they think is right for him. I feel a bulk of my childhood revolved around stuff like that; grappling with my own self-confidence (or extreme lack-of), my masculinity, my restrained emotions, the everything that I was afraid to show. The world trying to tell me who I should be when I knew in my heart I could never be that person. I can’t relate to every experience that Chiron went through but the ones I could I related to hard.

In a day and age where almost every LGBT story ends in tragedy it means so much to see one that actually ends with hope. I can’t express how much that matters, not to just to me but to every kid out there struggling to understand who they are.

Best #2- BLUE JAY

This is a film that hooked me in line and sinker almost immediately, I didn’t just feel for these characters I felt like I was right there with them while I was watching this. Few movies have been quite so emotionally resonant that I think of them for weeks after I watch them but BLUE JAY did exactly that. Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson play former highschool sweethearts who meet by chance years after they broke up only to find old emotions coming back. As typical as that plot sounds everything about BLUE JAY feels completely fresh, mostly thanks to the amazing amazing amazing amazing amazing performances by the leads. I clung to every word of dialogue in this, I laughed when they laughed, I cried when they cried and I was left an emotional wreck by the end.

Best #3 – ELLE

Trying figure out the best way to describe Paul Verhoeven’s ELLE is hard, closest I can come to is saying it felt like if Gaspar Noé had directed TROIS COULEURS: BLEU but that almost seems like an insult to how good ELLE is. For those of you who don’t know the plot of ELLE is a complicated one, technically it’s a rape-revenge thriller but there’s a lot more hiding under it’s surface. Verhoeven is a master of genre-play and this film, though a far cry from other movies of his like ROBOCOP or TOTAL RECALL, still winks at the audience in the exact same way. Isabelle Huppert plays Michèle, a tough as nails CEO of a video game company who’s raped in her home in the opening scene of the film but rather than contacting the police Michèle simply takes a bath and carries on with her business as usual, though nothing had happened… or does she? Basically right from the get-go the film’s weird tone is set and to say anymore would spoil it, the true joy of ELLE is watching every new and weird direction Verhoeven takes it in.

Also on a personal note Paul Verhoeven was an incredibly important and influential director for me growing up and seeing him take home a Golden Globe for this film was very very emotionally gratifying for me. You deserve all the awards Paul <3

Best #3.5 – THINGS TO COME

I’m giving THINGS TO COME second billing under ELLE because it is literally not only the perfect companion piece but a truly great film in it’s own right. In both films Isabelle Huppert plays the lead character who happens to be a highly respected professional, she has a strained relationship with her overdramatic mother and something traumatic happens to her near the beginning (and in the middle) of the film that she deals with it in an strong but almost emotionally detached way. THINGS TO COME doesn’t have the same darkly comic approach to tragedy as ELLE does but more of an uplifting and resilient one.

The thing that shocked me was how little it mattered to me that the films shared so many similarities, like this wasn’t a E.T./MAC AND ME situation, it was more of an E.T./A just as good but in a totally different way E.T. situation. It’s almost as if Huppert is playing the same character in a different life.

Best #4 – GREEN ROOM

Watching GREEN ROOM was like getting punched in the gut in the most satisfying way possible. In what could’ve easily been a dumb schlock fest this movie manages to have a real narrative that’s focused, a tone that’s unwavering and violence and scares that actually work, as in they aren’t just there to shock or gross you out but to actually help build the story and increase the tension. I actually hurt myself trying to contain a yelp during the infamous arm through the door scene (you know the one I’m talking about).

Best #5 – MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA is a movie about a shitty person overcoming being shitty in a shitty situation. What makes the film especially brilliant is how it toys with the viewer’s sympathies towards Casey Affleck’s character; he’s someone you’re never truly supposed to like but one that you definitely feel bad for. His journey is one of overcoming his own irresponsibility and toxic behaviour while trying and do the right thing when a long set of overwhelming responsibilities are thrown at him. Seeing how his grief, vulnerability, lamentation, frustrations and anguish slowly unravel feels all too real.

Sad facts aside, this movie will also make you laugh your ass off. Kenneth Lonergan understands what it is to be human and that there are two sides to every coin, with happy there is sad and vice-versa and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA definitely has a lot of both.

Best #6 – SWISS ARMY MAN

“If you don’t know Jurassic Park, you don’t know shit”

Having the prestige of being the best movie ever made about a bloated fart corpse wouldn’t be hard to achieve but boy does this one ever do an insanely good job at taking that title. SWISS ARMY MAN was easily the most sweet and endearing film I’ve seen all year, right from the get go I had no idea what direction it was headed in and every time I thought I did it found new ways to surprise me.

Best #7 – CERTAIN WOMEN

Something that always fascinated me was the notion that every single person in this world, whether you know them personally or not, leads a totally separate life from your own. Someone you just bump into on the street, the woman sitting a table over from you at a restaurant, the man driving the bus you take to get home, the unseen person who delivers your mail every day; all of them have their own hopes and dreams, their own triumphs, their own struggles, none of which you could ever be wholly aware of. CERTAIN WOMEN above all else encompasses that feeling for me.

It’s a sort-of anthology film featuring the stories of four different women in a middle America who’s lives all intersect in small ways. There’s no high drama here, everything about these characters feels so real it allows the viewer to develop a deep connection with them, even if the film just offers a small peek into their lives. The banalities of the sweeping nothingness of the cold and empty landscape that the film takes place in gives it an almost dream-like quality, especially when the stories of the main characters drift into one another. The first two segments with Laura Dern and Michelle Williams are great but the stand-out one is the last with Kristen Stewart and Lily Gladstone, their story left me totally heartbroken.

Best #8 – ARRIVAL

“INTERSTELLAR but good.” – The consensus me and my friend came to after seeing this.

Denis Villeneuve manages to create something new and wonderful with every film he makes and this one is no exception.

JUST DON’T FUCK UP BLADE RUNNER OK!!?!?!?!?!

Best #9 – HELL OR HIGH WATER

One review of this film that really spoke to me was Matt Singer’s over at Screencrush, most importantly the line “A reminder thrillers don’t have to be dumb, and smart movies don’t have to be boring.”

Best #10 – YOUR NAME

me at 2am: “I should probably go to bed, I’ll just put a movie on and fall asleep to it”

me at 3:30am: -weeping uncontrollably into my pillow-

A lot of people have been calling Makoto Shinkai the next Miyazaki but personally I don’t really think that’s true, they’re both tremendously good at their craft but it’s more of an apples and oranges situation. Miyazaki offers a world of wonder which allows the viewer to self-reflect whereas Shinkai delivers his message much more overtly, offering a very different sense of emotional complexity than Miyazaki. If you need any proof just watch JOURNEY TO AGARTHA, Shinkai’s attempt at making a Miyazaki-type movie, it’s…. not his best.

YOUR NAME on the other hand is a totally different story, this film is all Shinkai. It blends together elements and themes from his previous films and effortlessly winds in new ones, offering something familiar but also new and exciting (think Terminator vs. T2). It tells the story of two highschoolers separated by unknown elements beyond their control where every few days one will wake up in the body of the other. Slowly they begin to have great influence over each other’s lives despite not meeting in person.

Now although it already has an interesting enough premise, what I described is only really the first act of the film and honestly it could’ve just stuck with that storyline and would’ve already made for a great movie. HOWEVER it ends up going so much further in ways that I cannot and will not spoil.

Best #11 – THE NICE GUYS

Every which way I try and write an review for this I come off as being way too bitter that this movie barely made a dime in the box-office because apparently everyone was too busy seeing CAPTAIN AMERICA/AVENGERS 2.5 instead of watching anything with even a shred of originality, WELL I CAN’T HELP IT I HATED THAT MOVIE.

Anyway moving on.

Despite being from the tired old mold of the buddy-cop genre THE NICE GUYS manages to be fresh and original as well as holy crap I’m going to pee my pants-level funny. The main problem I have with most comedies from the past 20ish years is they always just let the jokes and gags lead the way, forgetting to make their story compelling enough that the audience is still invested even when they’re not laughing. This film is not like that; the story is there and the jokes are there to compliment it, they mesh together like jam and toast, tea and cookies, Riggs and Murtaugh, you get the idea.

Bless you Shane Black.

Best #12 – JULIETA

Pedro Almodóvar proves time and again that you can make movies that deal with very real topics and emotions in a fantastical way, you can have heightened melodrama without it ever feeling like too much and you can have a strikingly vibrant visual palette that not only looks great but adds a whole new level of depth to the film.

A few days before watching JULIETA I’d watched the much much worse film GIRL ON THE TRAIN and despite their massive quality difference I couldn’t help comparing the two. The two films are barely similar plot-wise save for the fact that they’re both thrillers that have scenes taking place on trains but noticing how differently they told their stories was what made it interesting. GIRL ON THE TRAIN is directed much in the way most North American thrillers are now (David Fincher clones), there’s no sense of playfulness with a visual palette, EVERYTHING IS GREY AND MUTED, EVERYTHING. Now this is a stylistic choice that works for a lot of films but it’s just getting so uninteresting now.

Best #13 – JACKIE

Things I was expecting JACKIE to be:

a biopic

patriotic

lackluster other than a probably good lead performance

Things I got

A hypnotic mind trip exploring only a few days in the life of Jackie Kennedy

Holy shit not at all lackluster

YES a good lead performance, not just good though, amazingly good

I <3 Billy Crudup – what is happennniiiiiinnnggggggg?????

AAAAH THEY ACTUALLY SHOWED KENNEDY’S HEAD GETTING BLOWN TO BITS

Best #14 – WEINER-DOG

For me Todd Solondz films epitomize clever black humour, his particular brand has managed to stay consistent and endearing over the years and this film is no exception. Also for everyone who hated the ending, IT HAD TO HAPPEN, IT WAS THE ONLY LOGICAL CONCLUSION TO THE FILM!!!!

Best #15 – A BIGGER SPLASH

I remember reading an interview or an article or whatever with/about David O. Russell where he stated that “story isn’t the most important thing in a movie, the characters are” or something to that effect. Now I HATE when people make such grandiose statements about an art-form like that, especially because the movie he was being asked about was AMERICAN HUSTLE which, in my opinion, failed because of it’s uncompellingly directed story and lead cast which, while hot, young and famous didn’t make for a very worth-while watching experience. Now personal opinions about AMERICAN HUSTLE aside to say that Russell’s bold statement is entirely untrue would be a lie, there are definitely films that are made by their characters and the actors who portray them and A BIGGER SPLASH is the primo example of such a film. (sorry, not sorry David O. Russell)

A BIGGER SPLASH has the best ensemble cast of the year hands down. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why all the lead actors in this are so good in this (and there are many different reasons for each of them) but the uniform thing is that they all gel together, creating a wonderfully perfect whole. Something just works and the audience gets to revel in it, these actors become the people they’re playing instead of just acting as them.

Now acting aside the film itself is wonderfully compelling in it’s own right (again, unlike AMERICAN HUSTLE); it delivers a really interesting tone with a weird sense of unease and tension where even if nothing happens you always feel like something will and when stuff does happen it’s a glorious slap whiz-bang in the face.

Best #16 – MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

In an era when everyone is trying to make their own John Carpenter movie MIDNIGHT SPECIAL rises above the rest. Jeff Nichols is one of the best newer directors out there and seeing him put his indelible stamp on a science fiction film without sacrificing it’s emotional core is what makes this movie truly great. It has the feel of an 80s classic without being too over the top or overt about it, even the crazy powers the kid has never feel forced.

Honourable Mentions #1 – NOCTURNAL ANIMALS

It’s amazing how well Tom Ford has done for himself having come completely from a non-film related background, with such a long gap between his first and second films I was curious to see exactly what shape this one would take.

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS isn’t a perfect movie but it’s definitely an intriguing one with some knocked out of the ballpark performances. The film tells two stories, the first of Amy Adams’ character Susan receiving a manuscript for a book written by her jaded ex-husband Edward. As she reads it she slowly begins to interpret the story as some sort of message from him, giving her terrible and increasing paranoia. The other story is that of the manuscript itself, a family vacation gone wrong with Jake Gyllenhaal as a grief-striken father bent on revenge. Gyllenhaal plays dual roles as the father in the story and Susan’s ex-husband.

Now I loved this movie at first, I had it near the top of my best of the year list for a while but as the weeks went on I found myself thinking how I was never really satisfied with the balance between the two stories. The story of the manuscript is standout whereas the one of Adams reading it never really felt like it came to fruition. NOCTURNAL ANIMALS is a seemingly complicated movie that I think deserves at least one re-watch, it’s possible I missed something but it’s hard to say. Don’t know if I’ll ever be wholly satisfied with it though.

Also I know it’s becoming old news to praise Michael Shannon but holy hell is he good in this, he manages to channel his intensity in so many nuanced and subtle ways, he’s just a full spectrum of amazing.

Honourable Mentions #2 – THE FITS

THE FITS is a really interesting bare-bones movie about a very determined tomboy trying to fit in with an all-girls dance troupe. There’s a refreshing lack of the typical kinds of conflict I usually expect from a movie like this, it’s a tale of adolescence that’s more hypnotic and realistic than it is dramatic, relying more on mood than anything. Expect good things from this first-time director.

Honourable Mentions #3 – IMPERIUM

The post-Potter career of Daniel Radcliffe has been so much more interesting than I would have ever expected from him, he’s making a lot of really interesting choices and I applaud him for that. In 2016 he cracked out two of my favourite movies of the year and though IMPERIUM is no SWISS ARMY MAN man if it isn’t really fun and interesting in it’s own right. Dan-Rad plays an FBI agent who goes undercover into the world of white supremacists and discovers it’s much much more complex than he’d expected. He learns that these neo-nazis aren’t all just dumb skinheads; they’re organized, they’re smart, they’re drunk on power and they can be as nice as your next-door neighbour. It gets a little silly in it’s heavy-handedness but the movie’s such a ride it never really bothered me.

Honourable Mentions #4 – NOVA SEED

NOVA SEED is a movie seemed birthed from the HEAVY METAL mold yet it’s able to stand on it’s own as a highly original and genuine work of art, refreshingly free of the irony that litters anything with even a hint of 1980s stylistic flairs (I’m looking at you KUNG FURY). A four year labour of love and insane commitment, NOVA SEED was entirely hand drawn and animated by writer-director Nick DiLiberto. With the amount of work that he put into it I wouldn’t be surprised if the reds in the film were literally inked with his own blood. It all pays off though, design-wise everything in the film screamed Moebius meets Ralph Bakshi in the best possible way.

The film follows our hero, an anthropomorphic lion named Nac, who’s on a quest to rescue the Nova Seed from the evil Dr. Mindskull. As much as that seems like something an excitable announcer would yell over a 30 second toy commercial from 1988 the story is surprisingly heartfelt and engaging. It’s a perfectly distilled representation of all the fantasy elements and plots that inspired it. The 64 minute run-time doesn’t feel long enough, not because it feels cut down but because I was so enamored by it I just wanted it to keep going and going forever.

Honourable Mentions #5 – HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE

Taika Waititi is a treasure we don’t deserve, he’s one of the few directors out there who’s doing comedy right. In HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE nothing is played for cheap, Waititi knows how to make the mundane hilarious and turns almost everything on it’s head to make it funny. Please don’t let Thor 3 (or Thoree as I like to call it) ruin you Taika, we need you.

Honourable Mentions #6 – THE FRONTIER

When I see posters for low budget indie fare that are trying to emulate classic posters ones I immediately assume the movie itself probably won’t manage to do the same. Oh how wrong I was about THE FRONTIER, this movie perfectly encapsulates the look and feel of an old pulpy thriller without being over the top about it and holy heck is it fun.

Honourable Mentions #7 – PETE’S DRAGON

And the award for movie I least expected to like but ended up loving anyway goes tooooooo.

I gave up on believing movies like this could be actually good a long time ago but holy heck I was surprised by PETE’S DRAGON. Genuine, sincere, heartfelt; all things I would’ve associated with Disney a long time ago but rarely now, for the first time in forever it felt like a movie like this wasn’t just churned off an assembly line but was actually beautifully crafted and handmade just for the viewer’s pleasure and necessarily just not for their money (except also for their money).

Honourable Mentions #7 – ALWAYS SHINE

This movie is so tense and uncomfortable it made me physically ill (and I mean that as a compliment) AND THE ACTING WOWOWOWOWOWWWWWW!!!!!!! A+++++++

Honourable Mentions #8 – AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE

I love movies that build and build and build their stories, ones that slowly escalate, creating a captivating tale that is constantly intriguing and engaging. AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE is one of those movies, and it’s scary as hell too.

Honourable Mentions #9 – THE SHALLOWS

As anyone who’s seen more than a few shark movies knows, other than JAWS (and depending how you set your standards, DEEP BLUE SEA) they’re all bad, all of them, it’s like an unwritten rule of genre filmmaking: “shark = bad”. So obviously when something like THE SHALLOWS comes out I expect the worst, “poor Blake Lively” I think “is this where your career is now, shark movies?”. Apparently yes but luckily for her it’s the best shark movie in years, maybe decades. Don’t get me wrong it’s no art film but holy hell is it entertaining, like it actually delivers on all the false promises that shark movie trailers give you. The climax actually made me go “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” and pump my fists in the air.

Honourable Mentions #10 – THE TRUST

I saw an interesting video talking about how mediocre “passable” movies are destroying Hollywood, that so many movies nowadays simply remind the viewers how to feel by emulating other films rather than actually making the viewer feel those emotions. It also talks about how when a movie like THE TRUST gets good reviews it’ll always say something like the film “knows what it is” which is simply a translation for “this movie is entertaining, original, and sets a tone that it never compromises”. People seem to be unwilling to take good genre films seriously, they mask their actual appreciation under the guise of irony, afraid to actually say things like “JOHN WICK is a good movie”, replacing it with “haha JOHN WICK is so bad it’s good, whooooa Keanu Reeves haha”. Like relax, you’re allowed to like movies without being embarrassed and if your peers judge you on that you should get new ones. THE TRUST is an uncompromising genre film that’s fun, thrilling and not afraid to be funny. Of the FIVE Nicolas Cage movies that came out this year, this one is by far the best.

Bad Movies I Liked Anyway #1 – (RE)ASSIGNMENT

This is the original review I wrote for this when I saw it at TIFF this summer, just know that my love for it has only grown since:

When a ridiculous movie gets terrible reviews I’m intrigued but not necessarily excited, when it gets called “gloriously bad” and “the most controversial movie of the year” I practically froth at the mouth. (RE)ASSIGNMENT is only one of those things, controversial? No. Gloriously bad? Absolutely.

The premise for (RE)ASSIGNMENT is simple, Michelle Rodriguez plays male hitman Frank Kitchen who’s out for revenge after being forced to undergo a sex-change operation after offing the wrong people. Frank’s story is intercut with interviews with the doctor who performed the operation (played by Sigourney Weaver) who’s been locked up in the loony bin for her crimes.

(RE)ASSIGNMENT contains a scene in which Sigourney Weaver’s character references a quote by Edgar Allen Poe that states that a piece of art should be judged by it’s own merits rather than it’s societal or political implications. This couldn’t be a more obvious attempt to skirt around the inherent criticism a movie like this would likely receive and the dumbness of including that quote really sets this film’s tone. (RE)ASSIGNMENT was so so so much sillier than I could’ve possibly fathomed, immediately from the get-go we see Michelle Rodriguez in her previous male body which is so fake looking it seems like it was thrown together maybe 15 minutes before the cameras were rolling. There’s even a sex scene where they give her a hairy full-body prosthesis (penis and all!) to give Frank’s gender more believably (it doesn’t work). For me to take that scene seriously would require a degree of patience that I’m not mentally capable of. Then there’s Sigourney, now if you thought the movie wasn’t dumb enough already get ready because (RE)ASSIGNMENT contains what is easily the worst performance of her entire career. Sigourney Weaver isn’t the most skilled at playing eccentrics, she’s better at subtlety, of which this film contains none. Sigourney hams it up like you’ve never seen, delivering Shakespeare quotes like your middle school drama teacher, doing her best to get through some of the dumbest, most ham-fisted dialogue in the film. To her credit though she has one monologue that got the whole audience cheering so it wasn’t all bad. I saw

(RE)ASSIGNMENT at TIFF yesterday, I got there late so I had to sit in the balcony, I was a little disappointed I couldn’t sit near the cast and crew but the balcony turned out to be the right place to be because I literally could not control my laughter throughout. To me (RE)ASSIGNMENT is a gloriously imperfect B-Movie that fails to impress but never fails to entertain.

Bad Movies I Liked Anyway #2 – BROTHERS GRIMSBY

If you thought 2000s comedy filmmaking was dead THINK AGAIN! This movie is so overt in it’s dumbness it was like I was transported back to being 12 and watching FREDDY GOT FINGERED for the first time. Sasha Baron Cohen aside the fact that Mark Strong 1) Actually agreed to be in this and 2) Somehow manages to deliver some of the dumbest dialogue known to god with a straight face is a feat onto itself. The elephant scene had me in tears.

Bad Movies I Liked Anyway #3 – NERVE

Emma Roberts and Dave Franco are players in an online game called, you guessed it, NERVE in which they’re paid to do outlandish dares for money. The dares start out simple; “kiss a complete stranger in public”, “jump up on a table in a restaurant and sing at the top pf your lungs” but the more you do and the more popular you get the more elaborate and extreme the dares get. Eventually Emma and Dave (I don’t feel like looking up what their character’s names are) are risking their lives in a inescapable cat and mouse game against “The Watchers”

Dumb movies are great but dumb movies that immediately date themselves are even greater. NERVE goes to embarrassing HACKERS-level lengths to try and be the most cool, slick and hip 2016 movie that could possibly exist. Now you could argue that it succeeds in it’s pursuit but do you really think that that’s a status any movie should ever want?

Bad Movies I Liked Anyway #4 – LOST IN THE PACIFIC

a.k.a. SUPERMAN VS. THE MUTANT CATS

This movie contains some of the most hilariously wooden acting I’ve ever seen in my entire life (with the exception of Brandon “The George Lazenby of the Superman franchise” Routh who’s performance is Oscar-worthy compared to the rest of the cast), the lead actress’ grip on the English language is so precarious it seems like she all her lines throughout the film were being fed to her through an ear piece.

Also the villains are evil hijackers who overtake the plane the movie takes place on and inadvertently let killer mutant cats on it (yes you read that right). The special effects budget is so low that 99.9% of the movie takes place on one set or in front of a greenscreen, most of the mutant cat attacks happen off-screen, and the “big blockbuster finale” looks like it was ripped straight out of a video game from 2003 quality-wise.

Bad Movies I Liked Anyway #5 – BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

Speaking of Superman! Watching Marvel movies is a constantly frustrating experience for me; they all seem to tell the exact same story now, just offering the same by-the-numbers approach to storytelling while constantly make the most safe, crowd-pleasing choices imaginable. The DC movies are not like that and honestly after watching BvS and SUICIDE SQUAD I can definitely say that despite their WAY more evident flaws I actually enjoy them more, am I saying they’re good? No but at least they’re offering me something different. BvS is a bad movie and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, it’s horribly muddled storytelling, weird sense of values and ultra-dumb climax make for a totally garbage movie, a super fun garbage movie, the movie equivalent of when you eat McDonald’s you’re like “mmmm this is delicious but I feel bad for enjoying it because it’s literally the opposite of what my body needs”.

finding out Michael Shannon fell asleep trying to watch this movie on a plane – god everything is shot so well, it’s like if Monet painted a flaming trash can

Bad Movies I Liked Anyway #6 – THE ACCOUNTANT

Now if you thought BvS was the best movie ever where Ben Affleck plays a superhero think again! (no it’s not DAREDEVIL you sick bastards) Because in THE ACCOUNTANT Aflleck uses the powers of his super savant-level autism to solve incredible problems and basically fight crime. This is one of the most bizarre hybrid movies I think I’ve ever seen; sometimes it’s a legal thriller, other times it’s a romance, other times it’s FUCK YEAH BEN AFFLECK WITH A GUN, WHOA WHAT IS WITH THIS FLASHBACK??? HOW IS IT BLOODSPORT ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!!!

Hilarious.

Most Hated #1 – YOGA HOSERS

This is not a movie, this is a hate crime.

No I will not expand further because that would require me to think about this movie, something I never ever ever want to do again.

Most Hated #2 – DARLING DARLING

is basically director Mickey Keating attempt at remaking REPULSION in his own special way that completely misunderstands what makes that movie good. His attempt at setting a tone is the equivalent of someone banging pots and pans together and yelling “I MAKE MUSIC!!!!”.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a movie this short feel so long, 78 minutes felt like 78 hours.

Most Hated #2.5 – CARNAGE PARK

IT’S A MICKEY KEATING DOUBLE-BILL, and yes this is 2.5 because his movies are so bad they don’t even deserve a full ranking in my most hated, they get half rankings because they barely qualify as films. Keating does the exact same thing as DARLING here where he takes an interesting premise, sets it up well, then leaves the audience questioning what’s going on and why they hell they’re still watching this monotonous garbage for latter 3/4’s of the movie.

Most Hated #3 – PASSENGERS

“You want this right? Two sexy young people with no chemistry but great Buzzfeed-worthy social media presence fucking in space?” says Hollywood as it tries to spoon-feed PASSENGERS into your mouth.

I won’t even get in to all the sexist, problematic, “Stockholm Syndrome is totally cool” garbage this movie represents; just read about it online, it’s all true. I knew I wouldn’t like this movie from the start but I was hoping it would at least give me a laugh or two but NOPE, ALL ANGER.

(ok I laughed a bit at Chris Pratt’s terrible looking fake beard at the beginning but that’s all I swear)

Most Hated #4 – PHANTASM: RAVAGER

Just look at Angus Scrimm’s expression in this image if you want to know how I felt about this movie. PHANTASM: RAVAGER is basically a no budget no CGI-nightmare YouTube quality fan film that somehow managed to score all the original actors (because what else were they doing).

Oh and terrible, it’s also really really terrible.

Most Hated #5 – X-MEN APOCALYPSE

This year’s TERMINATOR: GENYSIS, this year’s steaming pile of dogshit masquerading as a new entry in a previously good franchise. I don’t know WHAT Bryan Singer was thinking here, after making a suitably good entry with DAYS OF FUTURE PAST he completely falls flat on his face delivering what is easily the worst X-Men movie ever made (and that’s counting the first Wolverine movie). There are way too many characters in this and all of them are wasted, they all sort of get a narrative but there’s never enough of anything to make the audience care, like oh there’s more Holocaust parallels with Magneto’s character, let’s do like 5 minutes of that and go over to someone else now for like 2 minutes where we’re going to develop their character a litt-NOPE now it’s Apocalypse oooooh he’s scary, aren’t you totally not at all embarrassed for Oscar Isaac, he’s so cool and- now it’s Professor X WOW he’s bald finally and we’re gonna- no sorry back to Magneto aren’t you sad for him? No? too bad because we’re going to jump over to Quicksilver and WOW LOOK HE’S DOING THAT COOL THING YOU LOVED FROM THE LAST MOVIE.

ALSO WHERE IS JUBILEE??? WHY CAN SHE NEVER HAVE SCREEN TIME, WE WERE PROMISED SHE’D ACTUALLY BE A CHARACTER IN THIS ONE?????